Keeping term is actually within 3 miles of GSM, but the area can be varied

“(e)in exceptional circumstances, and for grave cause approved by the student’s College, in some other place outside the Precincts of the University” (Stat + Ord Chapter II)

so I suggest you speak to your tutor fairly swiftly to see if your college will agree to a move further afield.

Unfortunately, family accommodation for undergraduates is not on the agenda of most colleges, but you could ask (for next year if not this). There might even be some financial help available.

I am not clear if you have a car (you say your wife was commuting, but I suppose this could have been by train) or how often you have to come into town for study purposes. Joining the “school run” may have to be considered. Or look at places with reasonable bus services. On the other hand, you were prepared to move the children’s schools the previous 3 times, so I’m not entirely sure why this one should be that different.

You can’t do anything about the fact that the benefit system expects you to contribute £410 pcm towards your rent, or that they take student loans into account as income. All you can do is try and find a rent within the LHA limit. I am not sure you will need to go as far as Haverhill, although a lot of people (including employees of the University) do have to commute from Haverhill to Cambridge on a daily basis. But there was a 4 bed in Sawston advertised on Gum Tree at £750 pcm a week ago, for example, so they are out there.

You are right about rents in the south of the City of course. They are distorted by student )and other) households paying £350 pcm per room. And presumably by some richer households (to make a rent of £1100 pcm “affordable” in the standard use of the term would require a net income of £3000 plus a month, which is “richer” in my terms, although I appreciate it may be bread-line in some people’s definitions).

There were long arguments with the government and rent service about the Cambridge BRMA, but the amendments were minimal (albeit enough to make some people living in Huntingdon have their benefits reduced by over £100 a month).

I think you have a grievance if you were indeed misled by the Council into thinking your rent
might be met indefinitely, with the result that you renewed your tenancy, but you would have to review the correspondence carefully before complaining. Did you actually ask the question or just make an assumption? You could use this as an argument to support a request for additional payments until the end of the contractual period. But in the end I think you need to accept the fact that you are going to need to find somewhere cheaper, which will probably mean moving out of the immediate area of the south part of the city.

In October 2008 I moved my entire family (wife and two children) to Cambridge in order to study as a mature undergraduate. My wife took a job within commutable distance to support me in this. Everything was well (after a very painful process of getting our youngest child into a primary school but that is another story) until my wife was made redundant in July this year. We then had to apply for HB on the four bedroom property (badly needing updating 1960s semi) off Cherry Hinton Road we had rented (we lost all our equity in the crash during our move). Our rent is £1200 per month and we struggled to find a house to rent at that! Our claim was successful and we received pretty much the full figure. What the council did not tell us was that this figure was only for a 13 week period and that after this we would go onto something called the LHA. In the meantime we renewed the contract on the house and my wife - finding a new job proved impossible on a decent salary - decided to join me in further education after much research into whether we could afford it. We were informed in October that our rent would reduce to £775 per month, a reduction of £425; plus it was further reduced due to our student finance to £361.00pm a reduction of £839pm £10,068 per year (our student finance in around £9000 plus another £3000ish which we haven’t been informed of yet because of the issues with SFD) of which a large proportion is a loan. As you can imagine this has destroyed us completely. We are prepared to move but we do not want to move our 11 year olds school for the fourth time in a year and I am tied to Cambridge terms to live within 5mile of Great St Mary’s church. There is no housing stock available for £775pm with the median point seeming to be around £1100pm. What do we do? It seems ridiculous that our LHA is based on a huge number of properties in areas which bear no relation to the situation in Cambridge or even the villages surrounding it. Haverhill is a different world; how can we both attend Cambridge University’s and live that far away? I am honestly at my wits end!

Thanks for listening and help please…

Mark

Of course, anyone receiving benefits is funded to an extent by the rest of society, as indeed is anyone using the NHS or the state education system. The healthy support the sick, those without children support those with children, the working young support the old and so on. My objection was the implication that there is a division between those receiving benefits and the “rest of society”, which I think is mischievous warping of the true nature of the situation (as is practised extensively by the Daily Mail and stories such as the £595,000 council flat with the sea-view).

I understand the City Council put forward a perfectly well-reasoned argument to the Valuation Office for rejigging the market rental areas for this area, but the Valuation Service dismissed these (I suspect with tacit government backing).

Sorry if I seem touchy on these subjects at present, but the Welfare Reform Bill going through parliament at present is another particularly stupid and unpleasant piece of legislation, which is supported by the same kind of anecdotal nonsense about “scroungers” and “city centre living”.

My view, badly expressed perhaps, is that while we (all of us, as country) should not be funding expensive city centre living for those on benefits we also shouldn’t be forcing people to leave the city.

I think people with strong family, work, or other substantial long-standing connections to the city to move out to Ely to find suitable accommodation they can afford on Housing benefit is unacceptable on one side. From the other point of view housing benefit ought be a safety net, and should not be enabling people to live in expensive areas. There needs to be a balance somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps housing benefit ought be based on the average cost of renting in cheaper areas of the city and some of those areas immediately outside it?

I think more discretion, within clear, fixed and well publicised guidance and limits ought be present in the system. For some families or individuals it might be entirely appriopriate that they are not supported to live in the city; for others it would not.

Perhaps having juries who are not in court reviewing individuals’ benefits would be a useful check to ensure they remain in-line with public expectations, and in the public, local and national interests.

Someone on housing benefit is being funded by the rest of society; I see no problem with being direct about that and not skirting around the point.

As for inflated rents in North and East Cambridge; we must be careful that the housing benefit system does not contribute to artificial inflation of rental costs in the city.

David Howarth said:

Will Ministers agree to meet a delegation from Cambridge to discuss the deeply disappointing result of the broad market rental area review for Cambridge, which means that hundreds of Cambridge residents will continue to be in a position whereby their housing benefit is forcing them to move out of the city—a situation that the valuation office says results from the state of the legislation, not any discretion on the part of that organisation?

Helen Goodman, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions replied:

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that we will shortly be publishing a Green Paper on housing benefit. When we do, we will look at how to create a system that combines efficiency with maintaining work incentives and is fair to people across the country.

It is a non-answer, and shows no sign of urgency. This is a major problem, as it is stopping people taking jobs, fearing that if they become unemployed and in need of benefits again they will have to leave the City.

There’s no need for the rest of us to fund city centre living for those who can’t afford it, and I think social security should only be a safety net. But it makes no sense to force people out of the area, moving them away from their families, without support from families the strains they put on the state may be even greater.

The effect of the current regulations is to bar all families who might need benefit help to pay their rent - essentially the lower paid - from finding private rented accommodation in Cambridge City. Since the lower paid are also barred from ever buying in or near the City, all this does is increase pressure on the already inadequate supply of social housing.

He was told that the government is to produce a “Green Paper” outlining its plans to come up with a fairer system.